diff --git a/src/pacman/util.c b/src/pacman/util.c
index 9c1e6463..d2aa29b9 100644
--- a/src/pacman/util.c
+++ b/src/pacman/util.c
@@ -533,7 +533,7 @@ static alpm_list_t *table_create_format(const alpm_list_t *header,
 	/* now use the column width info to generate format strings */
 	for(i = longest_strs; i; i = alpm_list_next(i)) {
 		const char *display;
-		colwidth = strlen(alpm_list_getdata(i)) + padding;
+		colwidth = string_length(alpm_list_getdata(i)) + padding;
 		totalwidth += colwidth;
 
 		/* right align the last column for a cleaner table display */